


so we'll each hold one end and the space sleeps between

by spocklee



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23606062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spocklee/pseuds/spocklee
Summary: Zelos and Sheena write each other letters to avoid losing touch or getting too close.
Relationships: Sheena Fujibayashi/Zelos Wilder
Comments: 16
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate that zelos is a such a creep and we're gonna IGNORE THAT but unfortunately i love everything else about him. sheena is my girl forever. i like how most of their relationship is only implied since it shows up later in the game.

There was a crashing sound from the window. Who would break in when all the lights were clearly on inside? She sat up instantly from her desk, in the rush of air before the sound itself. Her tension eased; she could hear a familiar voice muttering and cursing. She slid open the screen of her bedroom.

"Sheena! Why was this--"

"Get out of my house."

"I probably have some cuts, at least lend an old friend some gel, maybe some wine--"

"What do you want?"

"Well, I would like to know what's wrong with your window, first of all."

"I'm guessing that you were so sure you wouldn't get caught that you didn't notice all the traps I set out. Oh!"

She remembered there was poison on one of the knives trip-wired to fire. Even if he had dodged, it still could have grazed him.

She flipped the light on. The knife was sticking hard and fast in the wall opposite the window. She ignored Zelos as she walked over to it and noticed the sliver of blood on the edge. She knelt on the floor and pulled up part of the matting, cracked open a trapdoor, and passed her hand over a hidden row of bottles.

"Lie down."

"What are- Wait, is it finally happening? Are you finally seducing me?"

"Lie down or you will literally die."

"I love being told what to do," but he laid down on the floor, and she grimaced at the scratches in the windowsill and mess of traps she'd have to reset. Throughout the room were wires and knives all demanding to be put away again. Zelos opened an eye to look at her.

"What's the bottle for?"

"Antidote," she cracked open the seal on it, "You got yourself poisoned. It won't kill you immediately, but I probably shouldn't risk it."

He looked smug, "You don't want me to die."

"Not exactly a high standard of affection."

"Hm," he frowned up at the ceiling, "Why is it so hard to visit you?"

She stopped, finally frustrated enough to stumble over her words, "Visit– I– I have a front door! It's the middle of the night!"

"Yeah, yeah, but then I gotta talk to everyone in the village and it's a big fuss and you're always annoyed by the time I see you."

"Nobody else sneaks in through my window at night."

"Nobody else has to flirt with thirty adoring fans every time they try to get near you."

"You don't have to do that either."

He gave her a doubtful look, "Sheena. C'mon. Look at me."

"You're right," she found the cut on his leg, staining the white pants, "You're lucky it didn't hit your artery."

"That's not what I meant-- Ah!"

She had swiped the antidote with her thumb across the long shallow cut, and knew it would sting, "You're such a child. Drink this."

He sat up and swigged the little bottle she gave him, "Thanks. Why did I have to lie down for that?"

"So you'd be easier to deal with," she stood up, ready to put her paperwork away and call it a night.

"Sheena, admit it," he leaned back on his elbows, letting his hair pool on the floor, "You kind of like me being all vulnerable and wounded like this."

"You had a scratch."

"That could have killed me!"

"You know that this is a village of ninjas, right? And they probably saw you sneaking in anyways? Oh, that reminds me--" she made a hand signal and a spark and hiss of smoke came out of her gesture; there was a similar spark of light outside the window.

"What was that?"

"My guards outside were waiting for confirmation that there was no threat from the bumbling idiot crawling into my house in the middle of the night."

He let his head fall back and grumbled, "This place is such a pain."

"This is my home. You don't have to be here."

With acrobatic speed, he flipped into a sitting position, his chin balanced in his hand, "Yeah, but you never leave."

"I can't just come to Meltokio whenever I want."

He opened his mouth; but the strange, serious light came into his eyes, and his mouth closed and opened again, "Write me."

"What?"

"Write me letters," he smiled and that fleeting intensity of his broke, "We can be pen pals. We used to write each other letters, remember? I'll even send you the first one."

She shook her head, "I'm going to bed. Sleep on the floor."

He blinked at her, at the floor around him, and then sighed, "Okay. Thanks, chief."

-

_Sheena,_

_Meltokio is sooooo boring. Which, duh, but like wow, I really owe the Pope something because at least conspiracies to kill me or whatever were INTERESTING. I've actually been trying to learn the piano again because there's so little to do. Before you get mad, YES I am still doing all my noble duties as Tethe'alla Chosen, but it hasn't been as busy as I thought it'd be. At least Colette used to visit me for a classic Chosen team-up, but she and Lloyd are off on some trip together… I think they're gonna finally do some real wild stuff like hold hands this time._

_Do you know how to play the harp? Or did I dream that?_

_Zelos_

_-_

Maybe she had expected something more from the letter, after the serious way he'd asked her to write to him. The villager’s personal carrier had picked it up and brought it to her with the rest of the mail, barely taking any time on the rheaird that she’d kept. It was unsurprising how underwhelming it was, but the last question stuck even as she set the letter aside and lifted her head as Orochi repeated his question.

"Anything important?"

"No, just a letter from Zelos."

"Ah," behind the face mask, he flinched, "That man…"

"A moron," she shrugged, and stretched her arms up, "Anyways. Tell me about how your meeting with Neil went."

-

She couldn't sleep. The damage to Palmacosta from the World Tree's rampage was greater than she'd thought. At the time, there had been so much going on that she hadn't even thought about all the lives lost. She had just been so relieved to stop it, to reset things back to normal, but an entire city had suffered for their recklessness. They had flown over it and seen the crumbling buildings getting ground down by the waves, already looking like some abandoned and ancient ruin.

She rolled off her mat and sat up. Breathing exercises, stretches, a walk around the town. Nothing she felt like doing in the moment. Mizuho had grown, and the population was rising again for the first time since Volt. Her mind automatically contrasted Palmacosta and Mizuho; prosperity always in fluctuation, whether between worlds or cities...

The pattern of thought was recognizable, and she knew would only lie awake and think about every wrong decision and lethal mistake. It would make her physically ill, a trembling chord from her head to her stomach. 

She got up and lit the lamp on her low desk. Sitting on the floor, she pulled a blank piece of paper out of a tray.

-

_Zelos,_

_There can't possibly be nothing for you to do as Chosen. Are you sure you're not just flaking? I can't play any instruments. Take this time to learn something if you're bored._

_Neil met with Orochi. He says that the resources necessary to rebuild Palmacosta are possible, but it would take time, and meanwhile the survivors are displaced. It was the biggest city in Sylvarant, but I think that with Tethe’alla’s help it would only take a few years to rebuild it._

_Sometimes I’m nervous for Sylvarant. The separation of the worlds began with a war between them; it would be easy now for Tethe’alla to overpower them. Even if there’s no outright conflict, it’ll still be difficult to convince Tethe’alla to lend its aid to a culture and people it considers rural and backwards. Before they hated Sylvarant because they were competing for mana, but now they’ll see them as a leech for money and resources if they ask for help rebuilding. Still, we can’t just let Palmacosta wait._

_Sheena_

_-_

_Sheena,_

_Flaking? No. No no no. Resting. I'm resting. That's the word. Beauty like this requires a lot of sleep and peace. I'll learn the piano and the harp and play both with one hand, but you have to promise to come to my first recital. I managed to convince the princess to host a masquerade ball so I could wear a mask the whole time. Nobody knew I was sleeping up in the balcony seats._

_You must be really stressing out if you’re telling ME all this. I never really understood why you were so at ease with packing up to Sylvarant, but then sometimes I get it. You really loved helping all those rural backward weirdos._

_Don’t panic. Do what you can. If there’s a war then there’s a war; at least we’re all still around to even have one._

_Zelos_

_-_

_Zelos,_

_"Beauty" like yours requires a lot of money and a mattress that costs more than Mizuho spends in a year. I'll come, but only if you learn to play the guitar with your feet. I don't know how the princess deals with you, but I suppose she's had practice by now. Also a war is a very big deal and one we’d all have to take some personal responsibility for._

_Thank you._

_Also I know you think you’re funny but please do NOT say things like that at ambassador meetings._

_Sheena_

_-_

_Sheena,_

_Are you feeling all right? I didn't expect you to actually write back every time._

_Zelos_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> has anyone else seen that article like 'why a 100,000$ mattress is worth it' and like blacked out instantly


	2. Chapter 2

The castle wasn’t even that big, when you had spent years exploring all the rooms. Even the ones that almost nobody saw were open if you were the Chosen, which he had learned as a brat eager to escape bodyguards and lessons. 

_ You really shouldn’t be in here- _

And he had been terrified for a moment, of getting in trouble and being scolded, before he had experimented with a sneer too old for him and said that the Chosen could be anywhere he wanted to be. He’d been half-surprised, at age nine, to find out he was right, and the anxious guard had left him alone.

The king’s room was off limits. Always. For Hilda’s chambers, he knocked. He liked the kitchens the best, even if they were too close to the prison and the soldier’s quarters. The cooks always set down a plate of anything they were making in front of him, and sometimes it’d be hardier or simpler than the food his chef made back at the mansion.

The hallways were crass in their familiarity today. Besides, he’d shown too much of his hand by saving the world; he was no longer a bumbling playboy but a scheming hero, and it drew more attention and fear then he liked. He left the castle and wandered home, and wished again that he could sell the place and move. It  _ was _ too big. That was the problem, with the castle and his house. They were so big that being in one room made you entirely too aware that you weren’t in another, and you’d wander around all day trying to figure out which room would make you finally feel right. He knocked on the front door and waited sheepishly for someone to open it. He never carried his keys with him.

“Sir, are you feeling lonely?”

Of course Sebastian was highly aware of his mood, after watching him sulk for the last month. 

“Nah. I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You have some letters.”

“Oh!” Zelos toed his shoes off and leapt into the house, “You should have told me!”

“I already have, sir.”

Zelos gave him a sly grin and thanked him as Sebastian walked away muttering about patience as a virtue.

-

_ Dear Zelos, _

_ Me and Colette have been doing great! Luin is really beautiful, and we keep meaning to leave but we’ve already stayed a few more days than we meant to. You can jump right off the docks and swim wherever you want! It’s so warm. You should visit if you’re not busy. We’re heading to Hima after this to see if there are still dragon tours. _

_ It’s almost been hard to just do things for fun. Sometimes I feel like we should be working more. But I talked to the Professor and she said that me and Colette have done enough, and we deserve to be kids. I think she’s right. I can’t wait to see her and Genis and the rest of you, but everyone’s so busy. Spending time alone with Colette has been nice too. _

There was something furiously crossed out after that, and Zelos smiled.

_ I was gonna tell you she sends her best, but she says she’s writing you a letter too! _

_ Your friend, _

_ Lloyd _

He tossed the letter down next to him in bed; the gesture was practiced in its carelessness, but his eyes wandered sideways to make sure it landed flat and safe. Later, it would go in the wooden box that Presea had carved for his birthday, with the rest of the letters.

_ Dear Zelos, _

_ Hi! Traveling has been so wonderful. I know we already went everywhere during our journey, but there’s still so much to see and so much changing! Everyone has been incredibly kind, even through all these big changes. It makes me so happy to see the world and know that everyone’s hard work kept it safe.  _

_ Lloyd is so funny. I fell off the docks at Luin. He jumped in after me and pretended like we both wanted to go swimming so I wouldn’t get embarrassed.  _

_ I feel selfish sometimes. I miss all of you so much, but being alone with Lloyd like this is special. We’ve never really had time like this, even as children. I can’t wait to see everyone and at the same time I wish my time with him would just go on forever. I wrote the professor and she said that makes perfect sense, and to not feel guilty about it.  _

_ Your sincere friend, _

_ Colette _

He laid the second letter over his chest. If something didn’t happen soon between the two of them, he’d have to step in. It was almost sick, how sweet and cautious they were. He laid the letter aside on top of Lloyd’s, with the errant thought of whether they even shared a bed or made sure to rent rooms with two (hell, what if they were still renting two separate rooms?) and looked at the third letter. He recognized the paper, and looked up at the ceiling and made himself count to ten before opening it.

_ Zelos _

_ Of course I’m okay! I’m just busy.You sound like Orochi. I was supposed to go to Meltokio to see the king and he forbid me because I have some lousy cold. It’s not even that bad! I can get out of bed now, so I’ll be arriving soon. I don’t know if I’ll have time to see you. We’re meeting with representatives from Sylvarant to reassure them that Mizuho is not a threat to them. It will be hard to convince them to trust us, considering that we’ve been spying on them and I was personally sent to kill their Chosen.  _

_ I should be in Meltokio a few days after this letter arrives.  _

_ Sheena _

He sighed, and laid back on the pillow. After a moment of hesitation, he laid the letter over his face and blew it off with a deep exhale.

-

He spent the next few days lurking outside the castle gates. The women who socialized in the courtyard out front were used to his antics, but even they began to look unnerved. He went to a cafe for lunch where he realized that the Chief of Mizuho wouldn’t use the front doors to the castle, but some special entrance for avoiding attention. His smile for the waitress made his cheeks sore and faded quickly. 

Hilda seemed surprised when he knocked on her door.

“Zelos! I--”

“Do you know what your dad’s up to?”

She shifted her head to look at him sideways; he usually made sure to at least charm her if he wanted something. Her voice turned deliberately formal.

“His Highness is entitled to his privacy. If you are not privy to his schedule, it is for a reason.”

“I just want to know if a friend is in town to see him.”

Hilda stood in the doorway, then nodded to herself, “Oh. Sheena.”

Nobody gave the princess enough credit for how smart she was. He’d learned through years of losing chess games. She left the door open, and he followed her inside to the foyer of her bedchambers, with its bay windows over the Queen’s Courtyard and the plush furniture and oil paintings. It was only one of several rooms dedicated to her wing of the castle. She sat down on a couch as casually as royalty could.

“Yeah, Sheena. You seen her?”

She squinted at him, “Aren’t you two friends? Shouldn’t you know her schedule better than me?”

“She said she’d be here in a few days but,” he shrugged, “you know. Vague.”

“If she wants to see you, she knows where to find you, right?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Well, then shouldn’t you wait for her there? Unless,” her eyes lit up and then clouded, and he understood the calculated cruelty in them perfectly, because he’d been raised on the same kind; it was why they were such good friends, “She doesn’t want to see you and you’re trying to hunt her down.”

He put his hands on his hips and tried to think of something barbed in the space of time it took to inhale. He thought of nothing, and just sighed at the floor.

“You know, you really get me, princess.”

“You’re so dumb.”

-

He walked home at dusk. The upper-class quarter was full of couples walking close together, disappearing after they passed under streetlights. There were no carriages or vehicles to watch out for; everything was delivered out of sight in the alleys, where commoners with cheap clothes tossed plain packages out of trunks and into private supply rooms that were the size of their own houses. Servants oversaw and signed forms; these young couples in the night would sleep through the next morning while their homes were restocked, without ever thinking about how or when. Food for them materialized on the table-- it had no inconvenient source or journey. Breakfast appeared fully prepared and world peace happened by the afternoon.

Zelos thought of the old group, as he tended to when these things depressed him. Except for him and Regal, they all had done the work that went behind growing food, building houses, crafting chairs, making clothes. He’d seen Raine fix a tear in Genis’s shirt and then pass the needle to Lloyd so he could fix his pants, and realized starkly that they had done this sort of thing many times before, since they were children. Presea and Colette went out to set snares for rabbits in the woods. Even Regal looked concerned as they passed by fields of crops, as if he was responsible for each leaf and raincloud, the stock prices in his head rooted all the way to the product itself. Sheena knew how to farm, and cook, and bandage wounds. She had once tried to make a doll for a crying child in Mizuho, and Zelos had laughed and fixed it when she showed it to him. She used her hands, without thinking, even at things she wasn’t very good at. He really must have dreamed that she could play the harp.

He said goodnight to Sebastian, and went to bed. It was such a uselessly big house. 

He woke up in bed to a cold piece of metal at his throat, and a gravelly voice saying, “Don’t move.”

He tensed. His hands were tied to the bedpost. His legs were free. If he could just distract the assassin, he could maybe strangle them with his ankles.

The metal left his neck, and the shadow moved backwards. A face emerged from under a mask, with almost childish glee.

“ _ That’s  _ how you sneak into someone’s house!”

“Sheena!”

He was torn between laughter and shocked indignance, but she was still beaming rosily at her work, “You didn’t wake up at all. I almost thought you were faking it to mess with me.”

His mouth was hanging open as he tried to say something, “I… You pretended you were gonna kill me! Not cool!”

She finally flinched, and looked nervous, “I-- I didn’t say I was gonna kill you! Maybe I did go too far though…”

He shook his head, “Good thing you tied me up, I was ready to leap up and attack you.”

Now she looked miserable, “I went way overboard. Oh! I forgot, I’m sorry,” she went to untie his wrists from the bedpost. It was an awkward angle to turn and watch her, but it was worth the pain in his neck. She was in her chief uniform. He rarely saw her anymore in her old traveling clothes. The cloth of her gloves brushed against his hands sometimes, and somehow it felt more intimate than feeling the bare skin of her fingers. The fine, thin rope finally fell away.

“There… I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

He rubbed his wrists and looked up at her. She was leaning forward slightly, with genuine concern on her expression in the dark. She really was embarrassed, and his desire to laugh finally overwhelmed any annoyance he had.

“You’re really amazing, you know that?”

Her usual doubt in him appeared, and it was more comfortable on her than penance, “You almost sound like you mean it.”

“I do, Sheena, jeez. Turn on a light though, would you? Not everybody has all their conversations in the dark.”

Seeing her in the full light of his room, in the midst of all his expensive antiques and clothes thrown about, was more intense than he expected. In the dark she was hardly believable; in the light there was a gravity and color that made her real. His smile was real, and too big and unplanned to be handsome.

“I can’t believe you broke into my house. Weirdo. You actually missed me, huh?”

She threw a pair of pants he’d left over a chair at his head, “Idiot.”

He peeled the pants off his face and tossed them to the side, “How’d the meeting go?”

She sighed and looked out the window, and for a moment he thought she was going to bolt. Instead she sat down at his desk. He remembered instantly that this wasn’t the first time Sheena had been in his room; she had been here all the time, back when they were children, when he been fascinated by the country ninja who said out loud how stupid she found the aristocratic life of Meltokio. 

“Neil represented Palmacosta, so at least he knows me. Pietro from Luin was a big help. The mayor from Iselia wasn’t thrilled to see me… I’m just…” she rubbed her knuckles, leaning forward so her hair hid her face, “How can I ask them to trust us when I don’t even trust the king? Mizuho’s loyalties haven’t exactly been consistent. Mine haven’t.”

He leaned forward, crossing his legs under the blankets, “Sheena. You’ve always been loyal to doing what’s right. It’s not your fault the king is an idiot.”

She huffed a bitter laugh but didn’t say anything. 

“Sheena. Hey.”

His stern tone gifted him with a glare. Her eyes were such a deep shade of black. He didn’t flinch away from them, didn’t get drawn in and distracted. They were as clear and sharp to him as the surface of cold water. If you fell in wrong it could break your neck.

“You’re a leader now. You’ve proven your own integrity over and over again. If someone doesn’t trust you now, it’s because they’re weak and shady themselves, and know you’ll come kick their ass if they try something,” he broke his tone and shrugged, leaning back on his hands, “Just be yourself.”

She searched his face. He was used to the way her eyes scanned over him, looking for signs of sarcasm or deception. Her shoulders finally relaxed.

“You’re actually pretty good at advice.”

He grinned, “Staying the night?”

She stood up and stretched, ignoring or not noticing the innuendo, “No. I have to go. I just came to see you before I left.”

She was already gone and out the window before he could tease her for being so sentimental. He was left in bed realizing that if anyone had it bad, it wasn’t her.

-

_ Lloyd, _

_ I’m afraid I can’t visit Luin, although by now you two might have already moved on. Do they have skinny-dipping in Sylvarant, or were you all still busy worrying about freshwater parasites? Who am I kidding, knowing about parasites is way too ahead in modern medicine. _

_ I’m just teasing. I’ve been in a uncool mood. I’ve been laying around too much. Maybe I should go on my own journey. If we run into each other and I’m with a babe, do NOT interrupt. I love you but do NOT do that to me.  _

_ I just realized when you get married I’m gonna have to fight that twerp Genis to be the best man. You know I can’t fight a kid. What is he, like 10 now? I’ll let him have it, but only because I’m gonna plan the bachelor party. _

_ Do they have those in Sylvarant? I’m serious this time. _

_ Anyways, enjoy yourself. If not for your sake, then Colette’s. You know she gets all radiant whenever you’re happy, so you’d be doing the world in general a favor. _

_ Your gorgeous bud, _

_ Zelos _

_ - _

_ Colette! _

_ The professor is right! Enjoy that time! Hell, if I saw two people as cute as you and Lloyd just walking around having a nice day after everything that’s happened, it’d put me in a good mood. Think of it this way; your happiness makes other people happy.  _

_ You’re maybe one of the first Chosens since this whole wild cycle who’s been able to escape the obligation. Even if you hadn’t gone on that journey, you’d still have to end up marrying some loser so you could have a baby who’d become Chosen after you. Your life is yours now! You can do anything you want. You should. If not for yourself, for the sake of all those Chosens who came before us. _

_ From one heavenly beauty to another, _

_ Zelos _

_-_

_-_

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (in the same tone as 'oh my god and they were roommates')   
> sheena and zelos: oh my god they're still sleeping in separate beds


	3. Chapter 3

_ Zelos, _

_ Thank you for your advice in Meltokio. I told Orochi about what you said and he said it seemed very unlike you. I thought I should thank you in order to encourage this kind of rare behavior. _

_ I know you  _

Something crossed out. She and Lloyd really were so similar.

_ aren’t as bad as you pretend to be. I hadn’t been in your room forever. It smells different. It used to smell like a woman’s perfume, and now I guess it’s your cologne. There’s still that little figurine on the bedside table of a unicorn that I made fun of you for. I remember sleeping on a mattress once next to your bed, when we were little kids. I forget all the time that we would do stuff like that. It feels like a long time ago. _

_ There’s someone playing a shamisen outside. It’s very beautiful. Maybe they’re just tuning it. _

_ Sheena _

_ - _

Something about the letter made him ache, which surprised him. He laid in bed and held it to his chest, and when he was called to the castle, he tucked it into his shirt.  _ Close to your heart…  _ It was a line from some play he’d seen, where the hero had kept a love letter in his blouse and it had been found stained by blood when he’d been stabbed to death in the end. It had been an impressive stage effect. 

The woman’s perfume had been his mother’s. It had stuck to his room for a long time, until he’d gotten older and started wearing cologne. Sheena and him were spies in their own ways; she could discern the difference between perfume and cologne, remember it automatically for years, but she didn’t think to guess who it belonged to, what it meant. She lacked his knack for seeing the wires of little facts, and the way they could be used to manipulate and twist people up in their own feelings. She was naive, and kinder for it. He’d been rewarded over the years for his talent at manipulation, to the point of preening over it if he wasn’t careful.

It wasn’t a love letter. It was only that he sensed some wire of his own being touched, at the mention of his mother’s perfume, her memories of their childhood friendship, the thought of her writing all this while someone played an instrument outside. Someone as shy and self-conscious as Sheena using the word  _ beautiful… _

The king was saying something but his hand was drifting to his heart, to the hidden coarse paper, as if he was pledging himself to something more deserving than a title by blood. 

-

_ Sheena, _

_ I do love to be appreciated. I’m heading out of Meltokio for awhile. I’ll be in Sybak, then Ozette. There has to be... SOMETHING fun to do there, right? _

_ Obviously I’ll wander into Mizuho, if you all haven’t uprooted and moved to be in secret again now that seven outsiders know where you all live. I’ll knock on the door.  _

_ I had forgotten you hated that unicorn figurine! No wonder I still have it. I’ve never been able to throw it away and now I know why. _

_ Zelos _

_ - _

He liked Mizuho. It was like Ozette and Iselia, boring and wholesome and surrounded by the huge hand of nature. At night he was unsettled by the lack of streetlights. It was a uniquely strange town though, and didn’t have the simmering and dusky bigotry of old Ozette or the cloying civilian innocence of Iselia. The people had lists of codes, responsibilities, traditions; he had never found another town so independent. They would have abandoned their own  _ planet  _ for another, and rather than see it as a betrayal he only found it dignified in a way that no noble or official had ever matched. The people of Mizuho had values that saw over the petty heads of royalty or geography. 

Still, good looks were currency anywhere. He walked in through the town gates, coyly flattered by the sense that he had been followed since he stepped foot in Gaoracchia, and in five steps was surrounded by those with no need to be as subtle.

“Zelos! You’re back, we missed you--”

“Are you here to see the chief? Surely you have time to see the new houses we’re building down by the river--”

“You must be tired, come to the inn, the garden is blooming--”

He grinned and backed away; his pleasure was more sincere than usual. Outside of Meltokio’s nobility, and especially in Mizuho where there were so few visitors, people’s attention felt less political. They simply liked him because he was good-looking, and showed a lot of skin, and had the exotic appeal of someone who hadn’t been born in in the same five-mile radius. Mizuho had hardly even seemed to care that he was the Chosen, the same way they barely cared about the power of the king. 

“Everyone!”

It was almost eerie how they all straightened up and fell away from him at the sound of Sheena’s voice. She walked down the swept dirt path and put her hands on her hips once she reached Zelos.

“I hope they didn’t bother you.”

“I think if you thought they were actually bothering me, you would let them.”

He saw a few smiles in the crowd. They were disciplined, but they weren’t the empty-headed pawns of the Pope or Cruxis. He turned his attention back warmly to Sheena as she started scolding him.

“Please, you’d soak up the attention all day if I let you. C’mon, follow me.”

He walked after her, and waved a parade hand at the people as he passed, “I’m so sorry, but I have to refuse your hospitality for now. An ambassador’s duties come first, although I have been walking a long time...”

She didn’t even turn around, “Whose fault is that? Take a rheaird.”

He pouted as they passed under the shade of a gingko, making sure it reached his voice, “That’s no fun. And miss walking all one thousand miles of the Grand Tethe’alla Bridge?”

She didn’t reply, which usually meant he’d actually managed to make her smile. They passed a group of curious children and he made a face at them before putting a finger to his mouth and nodding towards Sheena’s back. The children nodded excitedly. They knew if they were patient he’d give them candy or a toy from the city, like he usually did.

“Zelos!”

How could she tell? He sped up to walk beside her.

“The village looks good.”

“Everyone’s working very hard,” her posture was perfect, and he knew she wouldn’t be entirely herself until they were away from the public. He wanted to say something, like  _ You’re doing a good job.  _ It would only throw her off guard. He stayed quiet, and looked up at the leaves as they walked over the little bridge that led to the chief’s home. 

Once inside, he sat down on a pillow and watched as she tiredly gestured a signal at the window; some unseen guard closed the blinds, and immediately she fell on her own pillow and yawned. He heard her jaw crack.

“You okay?”

She blinked slowly, closing her eyes leisurely, “I want to sleep.”

“Then sleep.”

She squinted at him, “It’s the middle of the day.”

“It’s called a nap. Here, watch,” he laid down on the floor, pulling the pillow under his head, “I do it all the time.”

“Of course  _ you _ do.” 

He opened his eyes to defend himself with a bit of acidity, but she was looking down at him with a surprisingly friendly smile. He grinned back without thinking, feeling giddy and then embarrassed with himself. Maybe the only thing that had kept him in control before was the impending sense of doom, and now he was ready to get carried away. Was this payback for the trail of disappointed lovers he’d been leaving behind for years? Maybe he was just older. 

“The village is fine. You can fall asleep for a couple of hours.”

“There’s construction--”

“They need your help for that?”

“No. But--”

“They need you to get some sleep.”

She laid down beside him. Not too close. She was several feet away. Despite the letter, despite the way he had lit up at her one small smile, he still didn’t want to examine the meaning of those several feet too closely. What did he deserve? Not even the daydream that wavered at the edge of his thoughts like a mirage. He’d hurt Sheena enough.

“Zelos?”

His heart rate told his new emotional restraint to shut up, and it sped up, “Yeah?”

Her eyes were closed, and her voice was already thick with exhaustion. He was surprised she had been able to walk so easily through the village just minutes earlier if she was really this tired.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Nothing important. Get some rest.”

Her legs rustled on the mat floor, trying to stay awake, “You must have come here for something…”

“Just to see you.”

Barely a murmur, “Okay.”

Once he was sure she was sound asleep, he got up and found a blanket to put over her. He sat by the door, with a clear view of both windows. With the gesture from before, she had called off her guards; he would keep watch himself until she woke up.

-

Someone shook him gently awake. A grey blanket slipped off him, and he lifted his head from the wall where he had fallen asleep sitting in the corner. 

“Huh?”

It wasn’t the first time a stranger had woken him up in a strange place. It was definitely one of the first times that his head felt clear enough to process things right away; he had been keeping watch, he had fallen asleep and failed to keep watch, Sheena was gone, it was dark outside through the closed blinds, a Mizuho guard was looking at him and holding a set of sheets under their arm.

“Sir? The chief went to bed, but if you’re tired, I can set up a mat on the floor.”

His mouth tasted better than the previous times. He didn’t miss the cotton dryness of being hungover. Now he was disoriented in a new way, sober and overslept. 

“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be great, thanks. Thank you.”

-

He slept in, and the daylight out the window told him immediately that Sheena and the rest of the village had already been awake for hours, and that maybe, at some point, people might have stepped over him and the sprawling tangle of blankets he had created on her meeting room floor. 

Orochi stopped him at the village gate.

“Zelos!”

He turned around, his hands in his pockets, “Hm? Yeah?”

“Are you leaving already?”

“Yeah. I figured I distracted her enough. She’s busy.”

Orochi seemed to stumble over something in his head, and Zelos waited. He doubted the man liked him much. Maybe he was weighing an insult or even a threat against his own pride as a respectful right hand man. Finally:

“Thank you.”

He blinked, “What?”

Orochi approached him, and did not stop until they were so close that even Zelos tipped his chin back from the intimacy and low voice, “The chief has not been sleeping well. She was getting sick often… I was worried.”

Zelos relaxed as he understood the reason for their closeness was not so Orochi could shove a knife in his gut, “You don’t want the village to find out and worry.”

Orochi closed his eyes, “No. Nor do I want Sheena to suffer. It is not unusual for a new chief to be privately stressed, especially in times like these, but I--” and the resentment that Zelos had been waiting for, the feeling that Orochi would never like him raised its head above water, “For some reason, she can not find the comfort she needs from within Mizuho. You seem to put her at ease.”

Orochi was now staring angrily into his eyes, and it made Zelos go cold and oily in turn. He blinked slowly, deliberately. He had failed to be intimidated by worse things. Then he put on his best smile, the one that hurt pride the most. He was well-practiced in this kind of conversation. 

“Hey, man, don’t worry about it. Like I said, I’m just able to distract her. And the only reason I can do that is because I annoy her so much.”

Orochi broke his gaze, “I see.”

Zelos waved goodbye as he turned around to walk back into the forest, casually, “Keep taking care of her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> orochi... these people are like level 80 don't pick this fight


	4. Chapter 4

_ Zelos, _

_ You left! Orochi said you had to go. Did you say something weird to him? He’s been acting strangely since. The kids were annoyed that you didn’t give them any Sybak candy. Yes, I know about that.  _

_ They had this really weird dish in Asgard, with a spice I’d had never heard of. I keep thinking about it. Do you know what I’m talking about? I don’t know if you’ve spent a lot of time in Asgard.  _

_ Next time say goodbye to me when you leave! You’re so rude. _

_ Sheena _

-

She snuck out of the village to walk through the woods. 

Gaoracchia was known for being cursed, but it was what protected Mizuho best. Grandfather had referred to it as  _ the front yard.  _ There were flowers that grew only in the shade, tall and old trees, mist and the way any errant light breathed it visible. Of all the things that had terrified her growing up, she had never been afraid of the village being found. The village was like a jewel held tight in the hand of some bloodthirsty ogre.

Mizuho was growing. There were new babies, there was a feeling of relief, there was her grandfather alive and well, there was the river and candles of the shrine next to it. Smells of spices, wood burning, the sound of construction. It soothed her and made her anxious at the same time. The rest of the world was still rebuilding, and she had once been a part of that. She’d been everywhere, and now for months she had been back home. 

Under the heavy boughs of dark leaves, she remembered going to Meltokio for the first time. They had told her what it would be like, and it hadn’t mattered. It was so unthinkably big. Even a common shop was impossibly ornate to her, even the front gates. It was clear by the way everyone walked, even most of the soldiers, that they lacked the training that everyone in Mizuho went through. They seemed so soft and vulnerable in a way that unnerved her and made her feel old. The people in the slums near the laboratory had been the most familiar, but their alertness was weary, tired, like wild deer that were chased until they fell. 

_ I miss Corrine. _

She thought it automatically with an ache, almost with a child’s sense of loss. It made her feel young, how much she missed Corrine. Not the one who had been reborn in Iselia, but the one she had first met in that lab basement, that little creature who also did not belong there. 

Zelos had been shorter than her, his hair in a braid and his clothes almost laughably expensive. Her hair had been cropped short as a child, and she was often mistaken for a boy.

_ Why did I even meet him? _

It had been an accident, hadn’t it? She couldn’t place it. He had been in the lab for some reason, but he shouldn’t have been. She remembered him pouting boredly at several technicians who lacked the authority to tell this child that he had to leave, and we’re trying nicely to explain that if the Chosen died in their dangerous lab for half-elf adults, they’d all be in very big trouble. 

She remembered his face, the spoiled brat. She had been walking up the stairs and he’d turned and seen her, and interrupted his own argument with a sudden expression of glee.

_ Oh! It’s you! You’re the ninja from Mizuho, right? _

They had still been children, and though she couldn’t remember specifically what followed, it had been easy to befriend him. Even though he fit into Meltokio perfectly. He had been born there, lived there, and yet he reminded her of Corrine. Something about him had felt lonely. He seemed trapped and restless. He had felt domesticated, and resentful of it. 

-

_ Sheena, _

_ I’m sorry, I had to bail for a thing back in Meltokio. You know if I’m gone for even a few days they think I’m ruining the country’s reputation or something. It’s ridiculous. If I hadn’t somehow done it by now, I think it’s safe to say I’m in the clear.  _

_ Orochi! He was worried about me heading back alone. No big deal.  _

_ Do you guys not have candy in the woods or something? Like don’t people make stuff out of tree sap or whatever? Those kids get way too excited. Can I mail you candy? Can you like disperse it among the kids and say it’s from me, the Great Zelos? _

_ I hope you’re getting enough sleep, or else I’m going to have to come back and mother hen you by falling asleep on your floor again. I’d be kind of hot in a nurse’s uniform though, huh? _

_ Zelos _

-

She didn’t remember when Orochi had become forward enough to initiate the sexual side of their relationship. At some point they had managed to agree that it would continue as long as either wanted, and whether it stopped or not, their working relationship wouldn’t change.

He never seemed satisfied. He would frown, and change his mind about what he was doing, and by the end of it would stare at the ceiling as if he trying to draw up a new strategy for next time.

“What?”

“What?”

“Why do you always frown like that?” she had asked, lying on the floor.

He shook his head, “I’m just thinking about something.”

“Oh.”

She had never had sex with anyone but him, but she thought she’d read somewhere that you were supposed to lose yourself in it. And then afterwards, you would be in a kind of peaceful haze. It felt like they were both waiting to feel something that wasn’t there. 

“Maybe,” she said, “this is the last time.”

He never moved his eyes from the ceiling, and eventually he nodded, “Yes. I think so.”

-

_ Zelos, _

__

_ If  _ I  _ don’t see you for a few days I start to think you must be ruining SOMETHING’S reputation. I think this is your longest streak yet of being somewhat respectable.  _

_ Sugar is hard to grow! We have to import it. We have fruit. You just got them hooked on candy. If you bring a soda into the village I’ll make you shotgun it in front of all my of guards.  _

She hesitated for only a second to consider asking him about Orochi. Zelos knew about sex, didn’t he? But no. He’d be unbearable. Of course not.

_ You can come back but please don’t leave all that shit on the floor again. The window is open.  _

_ Sheena _

_ - _

_ Raine, _

_ I had a question about something, and I realized that of all the people in my life, you’re the only person I could come to with it. I know you’re only a few years older, but you’re the only older woman in my life who I trust personally. I know we don’t really have a warm and loving friendship, but I respect you and I feel like I can come to you about this stuff. It’s embarrassing, but you’re honest, and to the point. _

_ I was sleeping with someone. He always seemed distracted though, like he was waiting for me to react in a certain way. I thought I was being appreciative. I’ve already broken it off, and I don’t regret it, but I don’t understand. Was I doing something wrong? That’s what bothers me. _

_ I know it’s a weird question, but I can’t talk to anyone in the village about it. I hope you and Genis are happy-- I heard that Lloyd and Colette are on a trip. Regal is at the company mostly, and Presea is an apprentice with Altessa. I haven’t seen her, even though she’s so close. I’ve only seen Zelos, and it’s because he just shows up. _

She paused, and set down the pen. She hadn’t realized until then that she hadn’t made an effort to see anyone since the end of their journey.

_ I guess I should fix that. I think writing to you was a good idea. I already feel like I’ve cleared something up and I haven’t even mailed this yet. _

_ Thank you. _

_ Sheena _

_ - _

_ Sheena, _

_ I think I’m in the clear but I did drop a sword off a parapet let me explain. I was showing it off to some babes and I thought I was putting it away but I missed the sheath and I didn’t realize until it FELL and almost hit a nun. I’m telling you as soon as possible before someone reports back to you that I’m trying to overthrow the church (again). _

_ I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU REMEMBER WHAT SHOTGUNNING IS I’m sooooo proud Sheena I’m almost crying. _

_ I had a little wine at a paaaartyyyyy I wish you were there. I wish you were here in Meltokio I miss you. MY window is open. Metaforically. _

_ Love, _

_ Zelos _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> zelos wandering around iselia and mizuho like 'can i get some uhhhh twix? can i get some smarties? werthers? a room temperature pepsi? i'm in hell'


	5. Chapter 5

“I asked you to mail Sheena a letter, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you actually do it?”

This old man who had basically raised him only gave him an uncharacteristically sheepish shrug.

“Sebastian! Dude!”

“I must carry out your orders, Zelos.”

“Oh please, as if I’d ever fire you,” he flopped back down on his bed, “You didn’t carry out my orders when I was wasted and asked you to give me an eyebrow piercing.”

“Ethically, I couldn’t.”

“Okay.”

“Are you mad, sir?”

He sighed loudly, but, “No.”

Sebastian puttered comfortably around the room pretending to adjust things, which was his way of fretting, “Are you worried?”

He rubbed his forehead, “No, I just-- I basically remember what I wrote. It’s not like it was bad, it was just…”

“I thought it was rather sweet, sir.”

“You READ it?”

Sebastian’s mouth might have twitched underneath his moustache, “I couldn’t just mail it out without checking over it first, sir.”

Zelos rubbed his eyes, “I’m not gonna fire you. But, I think that maybe I am mad, actually.”

-

_Zelos,_

_I don’t know how to respond to this letter except to tell you that you’re an idiot and shouldn’t carry a sword around when you drink. Please be careful, if you’re arrested you can’t just say you’re the Chosen anymore._

_Thank you for visiting me all those times. I realized that I haven’t seen everyone else in awhile. Do you think they’d be able to visit if I asked?_

_Sheena_

_-_

_Dear Colette,_

_I know you and Lloyd are traveling, but could you make a stop to Mizuho? Some time within the next month. I’m asking the others too._

_Hope everything’s good,_

_Zelos_

-

_Sheena,_

_If I don’t carry a sword at all times I might be caught unawares. And I’d look a lot less cool._

_Leave it to me to round everyone up! We can have a big party. Mizuho parties, right?_

_Your dear beloved friend,_

_Zelos_

-

_Zelos,_

_Oh hell. But yeah. Mizuho can party._

_Sheena_

_-_

_Dear Sheena,_

_I’m sorry for the late reply. I’ve been studying the more dangerous parts of the Iselia Temple, and I had asked for nobody to risk looking for me unless it was an emergency. I came home to your letter a few days after it arrived, according to the neighbors. Genis has been traveling with half-elf children his age; though I think he misses Lloyd._

_When I first met you, you were already more familiar with how the world works than my students. Yet I can’t help thinking of you as one of them. I remember how little I trusted you when we first started out, but I doubt you of all people would ever blame me for it. Please understand that you are just as dear to me as Lloyd or Colette. You are always welcome to come to me with questions._

_In my experience, some men can make anything about themselves, even your own feelings. Your former man might have been more interested in proving his skills than in intimacy; the latter tends to be more effective for good sex. I doubt you were doing anything wrong. A good rule is that if you’re spending more time trying to convince a man you’re enjoying yourself then actually enjoying yourself, something’s wrong._

_I admit that so far I’ve only kept in contact through necessity or convenience of sharing a hometown with everyone from Sylvarant. Zelos contacted me about visiting Mizuho. I look forward to it._

_Sincerely,_

_Raine_

_-_

_-_

_-_

  
  
  


Genis was taller. Of course he was- it had been a few years. His hair was tied back out of his face, and Zelos felt the melancholy absence of a little brother on seeing that he had traded in his goofy kid shorts for high-waisted pants. Seles had also looked older the last time he’d seen her, with a serious posture and the lucid glint of an adult lurking in her eyes. Presea hadn’t arrived yet, and he wondered if he would find her aging more or less shocking than the others.

Genis noticed him looking, and and his mouth curled in pre-emptive disdain. Reassuringly familiar. Zelos broke into his special shit-eating smile just for annoying him.

“Hey, little man. Where’s your sister?”

“Die.”

He said it less harshly than he used to. Sometimes it was childhood insecurity that made you vicious. It looked like it had been replaced with exhausted tolerance. Zelos pouted as melodramatically as possible to make up for it.

“Genis… I don’t see you for months and you’re so mean to me.”

Genis ignored him, and looked around, “Hey, where’s Sheena?”

“I think she’s off on a mission. Should be back today though, I told her you guys would be here today.”

Genis stretched his arms and folded him behind his head, and it reminded Zelos sweetly of Lloyd. He wondered if Genis even realized. 

“Do you know when everyone else is getting here, or do I have to talk to you?”

Zelos put a hand over his heart, “Arrow after arrow.”

“Whatever. Are you hungry? I’m gonna cook something if we’re waiting.”

Zelos followed him to the Mizuho food stalls and thought that things would be alright.

-

Sheena moved quietly through the underbrush, vaulting lightly off the sides of trees to avoid tall dead branches and obnoxious bushes. The mission was over, just some typical spying, but it had been in the rebuilt Heimdall. If they caught her keeping tabs on them, even if it was just for Mizuho records, it wouldn’t go over well. It had required patience and care that had exhausted her more than a good fight. She practiced moving through Gaoracchia with relief, like cooling down after a heavy training session.

She leaped against the side of another tree, intending to push off the bark and over a thorny blackberry congregation. The wood creaked under her foot, and she slipped as the rotten trunk fell sideways with slow and definite weight; the tree was dead, and worn through near the bottom. She hadn’t noticed and now she struggled to roll away from the briar. 

“Colette!”

It sounded like Lloyd’s voice somewhere. Something knocked into her, bright and unusual for the woods. It hurt, but it pushed her away from the thorns. She landed in a heap on the ground. Without opening her eyes, she guessed what had hit her.

“Colette?”

Colette was peering down at her.

“Sheena! I’m so sorry.”

She smiled, and winced, “Don’t worry about it. It was either a million thorns or you.” 

“Colette? Sheena!” Lloyd’s voice again, worried. Sheena saw the slip of red clothing through the trees, although it was no longer his old traveling clothes. Now, as Colette lifted her head and turned to look at him coming closer, Sheena saw that the red was only a shirt under a black jacket and over navy pants. It suited him. She missed the overwhelming crimson; they had always teased him for wearing his father’s clothes, but now he seemed older. She had loved that naive boy in red, and he’d slipped away without her and been replaced by someone similar. 

She pushed herself up on her elbows, and Colette offered her hand and a beaming smile. Sheena blinked.

“Oh! You cut your hair!”

It was a bob at her shoulders. Colette sunk into her shoulders, but only a little. 

“Oh, yeah! I thought it might be fun, and easier…”

“You look really cute, Colette!” Sheena forgot the outstretched hand and leaned closer to Colette’s face, surprised at the change. Colette’s long curtain of hair had always seemed permanent.

Colette jumped and backed up. Lloyd had his hands on his hips.

“Right? I think it looks great!”

Colette looked like a cornered animal, and Sheena finally pushed herself to her feet, and looked between the two of them. Colette was too embarrassed to even smile politely, and Lloyd was grinning goofily. It had always been obvious. Though hopefully Lloyd had caught on by now. Colette stumbled, but recovered faster than she would have a year ago. She straightened up with a new awareness of her body, like an adult, almost reminding Sheena of the professor.

“Th-Thank you! I’m glad you both like it! We should get to Mizuho before nightfall though.”

-

“You doing okay?”

Sheena turned from the river. Zelos emerged out of the shadows, and his dark blue silhouette came into the lamp light and the color returned to him. She looked at the red in his hair before turning back to the water.

“Yeah. I just needed a minute.”

He held out a bottle to her and she drank from it. It was sweet and mild; some kind of fruit wine.

“Wow. I didn’t expect you to actually drink it. You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m just tired. It was good to see everyone.”

He leaned back on his elbows next to her, “Yeah. It’s nice to see us all in one place.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I just--” she bit back a sudden urge to cry, “I just missed everyone. And I realized that…”

“We’ll never be together again the way we were during our little adventure.”

She sighed through the ache in her chest, “Yeah.”

He sighed too, “Jeez, you’re ungrateful.”

She turned to him, “What the hell is your problem?”

“You saved two entire planets. I mean, realistically you shouldn’t even have been able to meet half those people. And c’mon, were you really so happy rambling through the countryside constantly on the edge of an apocalypse?”

“I… “

“I miss you guys. But I don’t want to be stuck on an adventure with the same seven people forever.”

“So what _do_ you want?”

He looked sideways at her, with that severe reptilian appraisal he sometimes revealed. But his eyes slid back to the river and his shoulders relaxed.

“I guess… I just want to keep moving. Whatever that means.”

She turned back to the water and watched it with him. In the dark, it was mostly visible in the slivers of lamplight that warped and rippled in the current. They could hear singing and drums starting up back in the center of the village.

“C’mon, Chosen, they’ll wonder where you went.”

“It’s cool. I like it here.”

She gave him her own sideways glance, but he was still looking calmly at the river. He huffed a rueful laugh at something.

“What?”

“I was just thinking that the next time we all get together might be for Lloyd and Colette’s wedding.”

“Wow. Yeah.”

“You feel okay about that?” his voice was layered with some concern and interest.

“Yeah,” she was happy to find she really was.

“Weren’t you in love with him or something? Or was it her?”

“Shut up, weren’t you?”

“Ow, Sheena! I always liked that you were oblivious, don’t tell me you actually noticed something for once,” he flicked a pebble into the water but it fell shy and dry on the dirt, “I like ‘em loud and stubborn, what can I say.”

She leaned back on her palms, her knees curled up as she looked up at the stars, “The thing is… When I think about it, we’d be really terrible together.”

Zelos pushed himself up suddenly and then seemed to rethink it, and he shook his head, “You mean you and Lloyd. Yeah. And me and Colette would be unbearably jealous. I think we’re not the only two feeling a little sidelined. Genis is gonna have a hard time.”

“He’ll get over it. He’s still young. Raine said he’s been meeting kids his age finally.”

“Sure, but it will take a few years. A childhood crush like that… It’s a lot to think through.”

She smiled at him, “You almost sound wise.”

“Aw, come on, Sheena. You know I don’t think,” he winked, “You ready to walk back?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

-

She was smiling. She’d been drinking. She sat down next to him, closer than she would have otherwise, and laughed.

“Man. Why did we ever stop being friends?”

He knew. She knew, and would know again once she was sober. For now she was unsteady and pleased with everything, even him. She leaned back on her hands and he tried not to feel her staring at him in the firelight. 

“Zelos?”

“Sorry, I was just… I’m sorry. That we’re not friends anymore,” it was too loud around them for anyone else to hear, and Sheena laughed in his face.

“What are you talking about? Of course we’re friends.”

He hoped she wouldn’t remember any of this, as he half-pleaded, “I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve this. I betrayed you guys. I’ve treated you like garbage. Sheena–”

“No, no. No. We want you here. This isn’t about what you want. You’re an asshole, who cares what you want? But we want you to be our friend still. We we want you around. It’s for our benefit, not yours.”

Lloyd and Colette were sitting on the other side of the bonfire, blurry and strange reflections of him and Sheena. Raine was talking in the shadows with the village midwife, her white hair glowing. Presea was showing Genis and Regal how to throw axes, along with several villagers. All around them were the shadowy, moving shapes of bodies, and it felt like none of them realized how much they should hate him, how vile he was. How could they all be so naive? How could they laugh and drink and let someone like him speak to their drunk chief? Where was Orochi to pass by and tranquilize him with a needle to the neck with nobody noticing, where was anyone to shut him up?

Sheena was frowning at him, dead serious and eyelids heavy. She’d probably fall asleep in the next twenty minutes. 

“You should probably get to bed soon, chief.”

She rolled her eyes, “Whatever.”

When she almost fell off the log they were sitting on, he helped her up. He walked her to Raine, who noticed Sheena’s state with a fond smile. She excused herself from the midwife and walked over.

“Hello. I’m glad you organized this. I’ve been having a good time.”

She raised her eyebrows discreetly at Zelos, but did not realize he seemed less than amused with Sheena drunk against his shoulder.

“Raine, you used to party, right? I bet you did.”

“I did, Sheena, thank you. It’s been awhile.”

“Were you hitting on the midwife?”

Raine actually blushed slightly at this, and Zelos interrupted, “You guys should catch up, but I bet Raine wants a little privacy. Maybe talk about this more in your quarters, right, Sheena?”

“Oh!” and then in a clumsy whisper, “Oh, totally. C’mon, Raine. We can talk more about that dude I was having sex with.”

Zelos’s head spun clean off, “What?”

But Sheena had already abandoned him to drape herself over Raine, who threw him a sympathetic look over her shoulder as they walked away.

In a haze he wandered to gather food and water, making small talk he didn’t understand, and carried it to Sheena’s house. He walked through the front door.

Raine was sitting with Sheena on the floor, and looked relieved to see him. She got up to leave and he paused in the small entry foyer.

“I’m going to head back out if you got this.”

“Why would you think I do?”

Sheena, leaning against the wall, yelled, “C’mon, Zelos, hang out with me!”

Raine gave him a wide-eyed look, put her hand on his shoulder as she left. That was all the help she gave him and suddenly he was alone, holding a former sake bottle now filled with water and a wooden bowl heaped with rice and curry. He went into cruise control as he set both gently on the floor next to Sheena.

“What is that? More booz?”

“No, you wino. Drink it.”

She rolled her eyes but drank, and poked at the rice before eating some.

“You gonna have some?”

“I didn’t drink like the world was ending, so no. It’s for you.”

“Oh, like you get to judge me.”

“I’m usually a mess! It’s consistent of me to be a wreck! Having our roles reversed is freaking me out a little and I’m entitled to that!”

She sat up grudgingly and put the bowl in her lap, and he wondered if she was as drunk as he’d thought, “Sorry. It was just, it felt so nice, and drinking made it feel nicer, and I just stopped worrying about everything for awhile, but then I started thinking about Lloyd and Colette, and then I was drinking to stop thinking about that–”

“How’d that work?”

She glared at him, but turned back to the bowl, “Well, then you had to drag me away so I’m guessing maybe it wasn’t working at all.”

“You weren’t making an idiot of yourself or anything. I just figured you’d want to leave before you did.”

“Thank you,” she sighed, “Really though. Thank you.”

He couldn’t think of anything annoying to say, so he laid on his side and propped his head up to watch her eat, “I thought you said you were fine. Lloyd and Colette really bothering you that much?”

“No. Not really. I guess I just,” she put the chopsticks down, “They seem happier than me. More free. Which is great, but.”

“Yeah,” he remembered something from earlier, and as much as he felt it would backfire, it was too perfectly obnoxious not to distract her with, “Hey, you and Raine been trading sex stories?”

The bowl clattered to the floor, “Oh dammit.”

“Sheena, I’ve regalled you with my sex stories for years–”

“I never wanted to know–”

“And now I find out you don’t even want to confide in me your first sordid affair. I’ve known you longer than any of those rookies. It hurts.”

It did, was the problem. He hoped it sounded like a joke. Jealousy aside, way _way_ aside, he had always thought for some reason that Sheena would end up telling him once she started fooling around with someone. 

“Why would I tell you? You’d just make fun of me.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. It was Orochi, wasn’t it?”

He cackled and dodged just in time before her pillow hit him in the face. She hid her face.

“How could you even know that?”

“He always seemed jealous of me.”

“Jealous?”

A huge mistake on his part, and he realized that he was not so sober himself, “Or you know. He’s close to you. I’m sneaking in your windows in the middle of the night. I’m a big nuisance. There’s a lot of reasons to dislike me. He’s known you awhile right? You’re close?”

She frowned at him thoughtfully, suspiciously, before inhaling, “Yeah. But it wasn’t… It was fine. But it wasn’t right for either of us.”

“Not your type?” He was pushing it.

“I guess not,” she bit her lip and examined the floor, “I don’t know what my type is. I don’t know what I want.”

_Want me, want me, want me,_ his stupid brain begged, even as he said, “Someone like Lloyd?”

To his surprise, she shook her head, “No. I love him. And Colette. But seeing them together I realized that… We don’t fit together. I don’t fit with them the way they do with each other. Or maybe I would have, but not anymore. Somewhere… I made a choice and that just doesn’t seem right for me anymore. I wouldn’t be happy with them.”

“So then why the panicked drinking tonight?”

“I didn’t– I just was sad, okay? They’re so happy and I don’t even know what I’m doing. I thought about what you said, about moving forward, but I don’t know what I’m moving forward towards. I don’t know what choices matter or what’s going to happen to me, sometimes.”

She pushed her palms into her eyes, clutching her hairline. Her ponytail was coming loose. He sat up and pulled himself closer, not touching but closer.

“Hey, Sheena. You’re doing a lot, okay? You’re doing it well. I don’t totally know what you mean by choices but nothing’s going to happen to you. We’d all come rushing over and help. This has been bothering you awhile now, huh?”

She bent forward until her forehead touched the floor, drunk again, “I’m just so tired.”

“Then sleep! You never sleep, dude!”

She groaned, “I can’t. I have so much to do–”

“Everyone has so much to do. They still all need to sleep. Get an assistant, delegate–”

“I need to set an example–”

“Oh, yeah, Chief Sheena died of exhaustion in the middle of critical negotiations and rebuilding efforts because she there was some work that really needed to get done at 2 am. That’s a great example,” he bent down towards her face, “Sheena. Look at me.”

She tilted her face so an eye peeked out at him. He resisted the urge to melt.

“You know how I’m incredibly beautiful?”

She groaned louder than before, but this time she sat up and laughed as she dragged a hand over her closed eyes, “Zelos.”

“It’s because I sleep!” 

Her eyes stayed closed as she shrugged to herself, and if he could just talk to her a little bit longer she’d fall asleep without a fight, “Your bed does look really comfortable…”

“Yeah, I’ll send you a mattress just like it in the mail.”

“No, it’d be too soft for me.”

“Oh, sorry. I’ll mail you a slightly softer floor.”

She smiled as she laid down. He relaxed, until he stood up to get a blanket for her and she reached for his leg.

“Can you stay? I slept better with you here.”

Her eyes still closed. She’d never say something like that to him sober. Both their voices had gone soft.

“Yeah. Let me just get you a pillow, okay?”

Her voice was getting quieter even as what she said caught him more off guard, “Did you mean it? When you said you missed me?”

Before he could say anything, she huffed a little laugh into the pillow he put under her head, “Nah, you were just drunk when you wrote that. But I like your letters. It made me laugh.”

He went to the far side of the room and lay with his back curled up against the wall like a cowed animal.

“Goodnight, Sheena.”

“Goodnight, Zelos.”

  
-

-

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> became clear to me in this chapter that i just really miss talking about this game and want to see time-skip character designs


	6. Chapter 6

He woke up and she was already sitting awake, legs crossed, looking toward the window. He hoped the guard was passed out somewhere. 

She was frowning at the sunlight coming gold and misty through the wall panels, “I remember now. When we stopped being friends.”

He didn’t summon a grin or a joke. He let himself wait, let himself be trapped under something heavy and invisible. She still refused to look at him, and he knew already that it was intentional. 

“You asked me to leave Meltokio with you. You wanted to run away. We must have been thirteen… You said that we could disappear somewhere, like Flanoir, and I laughed and said we didn’t even have a boat… You looked so serious and I realized you weren’t joking.”

A cruel smile was starting to reflexively curve his mouth; he remembered what it felt like to betray everyone at the Tower of Salvation, how satisfied he had been with his own shame. It had seemed right, a good fit, like he was finally being as terrible as he was always worried he might be. Even the secret warm joy of saving everyone later, of not hating himself, had been a trembling and anxious feeling in comparison to that solid sense of saying see? Aren’t I a bad person? Sure, I’m bad, but aren’t you all stupid for thinking I could ever be good? Sheena’s voice continued and made the smile fall away. He suddenly only felt blankly and assuredly sad.

“I said that I couldn’t just leave Mizuho and you said that I could. That it wasn’t fair that I had to stay in a village where everyone hated and blamed me,” her voice was almost steady, “and I said that it was none of your business. And that you just didn’t want to be alone when you ran away, and you wanted to drag me with you. I told you that you would be the Chosen no matter where you went. You got so cold, when I said that. You were so mad and that’s when you finally laughed at me and said you were joking. And the next time I saw you… ”

He remembered. The loose, floating feeling of no longer trusting Sheena; he had embarrassed himself in front of her by being so serious. He had revealed too much but not everything, and she had seen through it all anyways, as unmotivated but precise as when she had sensed the change from perfume to cologne in his bedroom. 

“You were with other people. And you told them I was just some hick from the country, and that it was probably obvious by the way I dressed and walked.”

It was so strange that neither of them had thought about this in years, and yet it was easy to recall. It had been in the rose gardens next to the coliseum. It was strange that even now, it sounded like Sheena might cry.

She fumbled with something in her hands, and he saw an envelope. She held it out, still with her back turned to him.

“You got a letter this morning. It has the monarch’s stamp on it.”

“So it’s probably something stupid, huh.”

She didn’t respond. As soon as he touched the letter she let go, and it almost fell to the floor. He flipped it open expecting a typical summons, a formal _where the hell are you?_ But instead saw a block of cramped writing. 

“I’m not mad, you know. It happened years ago,” her voice was lofty, strange, and she still wouldn’t look at him. 

“Sure. I’m gonna read this outside. I’ll see ya.”

He sat by the well behind her house, and then imagined her seeing him through the window, and he got up and walked to the outskirts of the village, ducking and hiding behind a building when he saw Lloyd and Genis walking around. He found a boulder by the fields and sat behind it.

There were actually two letters inside the envelope. One, from Hilda, surprisingly shorter than the one from her father’s minister. 

_Zelos,_

_I know this will seem out of nowhere, but I doubt you’ll be surprised. We’ve known this was coming for awhile, didn’t we? I know you like your freedoms and I like my space, so I wanted to write you to let you know that the arrangement would change very little. We can talk about it more once you come back from the country._

_Hilda_

He grimaced at it. It sounded like he’d been meant to read the other letter first.

_Dear Chosen,_

_It has been decided by His Royal Highness and the High Court of Meltokio that you have proven yourself a hero and a patriot to the kingdom, and to the whole of Tethe’alla itself. Your role in unveiling the conspiracies of the Church as well as saving–_

He skimmed past the hollow compliments.

_As the Chosen, a member of high society, a friend of the Crown, and a man who we owe our lives to, it seems obvious that you would be worthy of Princess Hilda’s hand in marriage. You’re a perfect match for each other, destined since birth. It is no small comfort to His Highness that you are also friends instead of strangers. Your marriage will reunite the Church and the Crown, and mark the new great age we are to embark on–_

He dropped the letter to rub his temples. Of course. Obviously. There would be no implications of him having a choice in the matter in the rest of the letter’s flatterings. He’d return to Meltokio and they’d probably throw a parade to announce the engagement, and who would be surprised? Of course the Chosen would marry the princess. 

The only thing that kept him from losing it entirely was knowing how much it must have killed the king to decide this. Of all the people to pick as his heir, _Zelos_ , but wasn’t it perfect? Sure, the king had tried to have him killed a few times, and knew he was a serial philanderer, and he grinned in spite thinking about it. The coronation would probably give the bastard an aneurysm if the wedding didn’t.

As if Hilda had any choice either. Was there anyone she wished she could marry instead? Any cooks, any servants, who Zelos hadn’t noticed her keeping close to her? Anybody who made the cold, bored glint in her eyes flee for even a minute? He had lost the trick to making her carelessly happy in the last few years. She knew not to depend on him. His own dark misery, however deep he hid it, could recognize but not resolve her own. If they married, they’d be equals and they’d understand each other; but there would be no saving each other. They would be unhappy and aimless together, and lead the country with self-loathing and disinterest. _I know you like your freedom._ She already expected him to be unfaithful, and with _I like my space,_ she not only expected but hoped he’d rarely be around. He imagined himself; handsome, older, pathetically and infamously selfish and absent to the throne and his wife. A useless leech to the end.

He leaned back against the boulder. The sunrise was already over and the sky was clear, and boring. 

-

Lloyd knocked on the doorframe. She knew it was him without turning around from her desk because– well, because she had spent a lot of time with him. She’d know if it was Genis, or even Presea. It was just that she knew especially when it was Lloyd.

“Yeah?” Not unfriendly.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure, I’m just looking over some field reports.”

She could hear the way the legs of his pants brushed against each other as he walked over. He sat next to her, crossing his legs despite his tendency to spread out. She could sense the way he was trying to hold himself in.

“Zelos left.”

She gave the mission proposal for a trip to Altamira an unimpressed glance for multiple reasons, “Of course he did.”

“Did he say goodbye to you?”

“No,” she scratched a signature, “Typical.”

Lloyd scratched his eyebrow and winced.

“If you have something to say–”

“Is something going on with you two?”

She sputtered, “No!”

“Oh,” he finally stretched back on his palms, seeming genuinely caught off guard, “Huh.”

“What?”

“Me and Colette just figured that you guys would finally get together or something, if you hadn’t already.”

Her tone was tight as she turned back to the desk, “We’ve never done anything.”

“But you guys are friends right? I know you argue but we figured you don’t actually hate him. If you do–”

“We’re friends. I don’t hate him.”

He accepted that in silence, and they sat together as she tried to read another report. Finally he pulled himself back up, and rubbed his fingers.

“I wanted to tell you something. Is now a good time?”

“Sure.”

“It’s important. Can you stop doing paperwork?”

She paused and set the pen down slowly, “Okay.”

He looked up, just as she realized there was a ring on his hand. He noticed her eyes widen and smiled shyly.

“I proposed to Colette. She said yes.”

The immediate feeling was joy. And after that automatic joy was a second wave, a joy that came because she expected this announcement but did not to expect to feel this way. She felt light in a way that seemed impossible, confusing. She grabbed his hands.

“I can’t believe it! Last night?”

“Yes, I–”

“Oh no, did I fall asleep before you announced it?”

“What? No! We went on a walk after the party last night, I’ve only told Genis this morning. You’re the second person who knows.”

Her face broke into a stupid grin. He started laughing.

“She said yes, right?”

“Yeah! She cried at first, I was so nervous that she was upset but then she said she was super happy–”

Sheena laughed, and Lloyd was crying now even as he smiled and rubbed his eyes.

“You made the rings yourself, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I asked dad to show me.”

“I bet he cried too.”

“Maybe.”

There was a moment, looking at him so teary and sweet, that she imagined if it was her and not Colette. There was something tempting about the thought but wrong, like a key that wouldn’t turn a lock. The moment fled and she did not look back to see where it had gone. 

-

She had often laid awake and wondered how narrowly history had followed the course of Colette's mercy, Lloyd's optimism, Raine's grudging willingness to let the naive pleas of children overwhelm her own pessimism. So much of the world had depended on the chance kindness of strangers. It was those she had known the longest who had ended up betraying her. 

-

_Zelos,_

_Lloyd and Colette proposed. You would know if you had stuck around._

_There’s always a million things I want to say to you and I never do, you know?_

_Sheena_

_-_

There was nothing remarkable about his return home, about the long walk over the bridge, except that when he stepped inside Sebastian was cooking. Usually he stood at the door, expecting him based on a message sent up by an urchin by the guards at the front gate. A chain of people rushing around to create the image of perfect servitude.

Instead Sebastian had taken off his jacket, a towel thrown over his shoulder, white sleeves rolled up, and continued moving between the stove and the oven even once Zelos appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“Hey.”

“Hello, sir. I sent the cook home. I thought I would prepare dinner tonight.”

Zelos smiled tiredly, “You heard, huh?”

“They sent me a letter to give you once you arrived home. They instructed me to let them know as soon as you returned.”

“And?”

“And I made sure that the guards would only inform _me_ of your arrival,” he took the towel from his shoulders and wiped his hands, watching some butter brown in a pan, “I thought you might want a moment’s peace before the vultures carried you off.”

Zelos leaned against the doorframe, smelling a souffle in the oven and only half trying to hide how touched he was, “You didn’t have to. I’m a vulture too.”

“Yes, well. I’d hate to have to pack up and move to the castle with you. They’re all dreadfully stuffy there.”

Zelos laughed, “You need any help?”

“Sir, to be honest, you smell like food poisoning." 

"That's how I feel.”

"Go clean up and leave me in peace a few minutes more."

Zelos left and ignored the deliberately loud sniffle of disgust that Sebastian amused himself with.

-

-

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lloyd and colette are so sweet. i do also cherish and uphold the holy trinity, which is lloyd and colette throupling a very confused but happy sheena


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm halfway through writing an original book but had to put that shit on pause to write a very long fic for side characters from a gamecube jrpg because if you can't tell by now, i still miss tales of symphonia all the time

The gates of Meltokio were still taller than any building in Mizuho. She walked through them; as a leader it was no longer appropriate to sneak by the guards just because she didn’t feel like explaining herself.

“I’m the Chief of Mizuho. I’m here to see the Chosen.”

The guard nodded politely. Behind the helmet it was probably someone who’d seen her often enough to recognize her and grow too comfortable. 

“On what business?” More of a friendly question than a formal point, but she still tensed.

“Ambassador duties.”

“Cool.”

He bowed and she returned it without thinking, as she always did. A little voice in the back of her head that sounded like Corrine’s overlapped with Raine’s; _you shouldn’t do that, Sheena._ A shamelessly loud laugh that sounded like Zelos. 

She had made it to the second tier of the city before a guard, in the light armor of a messenger, ran up to her. The woman bowed anxiously before stopping fully.

“Chief Sheena of Mizuho!”

“Yes?”

“I was informed you were here to see the Chosen.”

“Yes,” she tilted her head curiously, “Is he busy right now?”

“He’s missing.”

“What!”

Half of her was already furious with the thoughts of him running off, leaving without thinking if it would worry everyone, goofing around somewhere, coming back whenever it suited him and then teasing her. _Upset even you can’t always keep track of me?_ Another part of her felt ill and cold. 

She remembered the freefall of shock she had felt in the Tower of Salvation, as he floated upwards into a point of misery and she realized she had never known him the way she thought she had. His eyes had gone dead with self-loathing in a way that frightened her through the fury, and the sensation had never faded entirely.

She buttoned the shiver in her spine down to address the messenger as a general looking over a map before a battle might, “When was the last time he was seen in the city?”

The messenger, already nervous, turned pale, “Before he left on a trip to Mizuho.”

Sheena thought it through; she had assumed he had just left for Meltokio to nurse his self-pity. She had been annoyed with him, annoyed with the conclusion that even though she had only stated the truth he had been annoyed with her for bringing it up, and rather than feel guilty he had fled. She had felt bitter that it seemed like he’d been so unable to offer an apology, to confront her own hurt, that he’d simply left her and whatever they had been repairing between them. It was as if he’d decided she was too much trouble.

The guard was shaking, and Sheena flicked her eyes at them sharply instinctively rather than with intention. The guard flinched, and Sheena realized that it was possible she was suspected of– what? Kidnapping the Chosen? Holding him hostage in Mizuho, to demand as a ransom? Murdering him? She sighed.

“You’re dismissed. Thank you.”

The guard paused, probably wondering if she was professionally obligated to try and arrest Sheena as a suspect, before rethinking it and running off. Maybe to get help. Meltokio was so ridiculous, Sheena thought, as she headed to Zelos’ house.

Sebastian greeted her, hardly seeming worried. Then again, he always had an air of perfectly sculpted nonchalance. She had admired it in passing over the years; he would make an excellent spy.

“Ah, Chief Sheena. It is good to see you.”

“Hey, Sebastian. Have you seen Zelos?”

“Ah, he’s missing. Why don’t you come inside?”

She followed him in. She trusted Sebastian, and if there was a deception lying in wait she didn’t believe it was for her.

“I’m not sure where he’s went. You know he likes to disappear but he was expected back at the castle for a meeting, so you can understand it’s more stressful than usual. Would you like some tea?”

He went to the kitchen, conveniently windowless, and she sat down at kitchen table, examining the corners of the room while her pitching her voice in concern.

“Did he say anything about a trip after Mizuho? He arrived there safely. He left and I assumed he was coming back here.”

“No, I’m afraid not. You know how he is,” he set a plate down in front of her, a full meal, “Forgive me, the tea is still cooking. I assume you’re hungry from traveling.”

Underneath the plate was a sealed envelope. She tapped it with her finger and smiled at him with the unsaid question.

“Ah, go ahead, Chief. I already ate.”

She cut the envelope open in one swift motion with the small knife kept in her sleeves, and removed the letter. Immediately she saw it was his handwriting, but also the writing was small, even at the beginning in a way that suggested he knew he would be writing too much to fit on the page. She swallowed her nervousness and couldn’t focus on the words.

“How was your meal earlier, Sebastian?”

He poured them two cups of tea, “Oh, good, good. Something simple and filling. If you’re worried the food is too rich I promise the meal is less upsetting than you think.”

She relaxed, and was able to read.

_Sheena,_

_I’m leaving Meltokio for awhile. I know what you’re thinking. I’m so irresponsible, I’m running way to goof off, I’m worrying you for no good reason. I don’t mean to try to convince you. There’s just some stuff I have to figure out, and I don’t have to tell you that Meltokio is the kind of city that doesn’t like to wait for answers, right?_

She smiled, relaxing into the hard kitchen chair as the tea steamed unnoticed on the table.

_I’m trying to figure out what I want. I don’t really know. Or I know but I don’t know how I want it. Or I know but maybe I shouldn’t have what I want, you know? You know. Some people might even say that sometimes I do what I want without thinking it through because I hate thinking and I hate being considerate. It’s very annoying and I do hate thinking hating and I do hate being considerate, and I wish instead of writing this letter and cramping my hand trying to write small that I could just talk to you in person. But I guess that’s one of those things I want but I need to think about._

_I said that there’s no going back to all of us traveling together. And there isn’t. We’re all too different, and I can’t imagine another scenario where we would all have a reason to join forces again and frankly I don’t want to. And I can bear that. And I know, or I hope you know that while I would never admit this again it’s not a thing I bear lightly._

_Sometimes the thing I can’t stand is that maybe we’ll all lose touch with each other. That there will be a day I see Lloyd or Raine for the last time or Colette won’t know what to write me anymore and I’ll be able to tell when she just does it to be nice. Presea and Genis will get older and if I see them I won’t understand where the people I knew went. Regal will disappear nobly into a private life, and maybe I’ll finally be unable to knock on the door and disturb any peace he’s trying to get because I’m bored. I can’t stand the idea that you and me will spend the rest of our lives writing letters and falling into each other rooms and then what, I keep sleeping in or fucking up and leaving and nothing changes? I only ever see you, the only real friend I had growing up, before all this adventure stuff, when it’s convenient?_

_I don’t know if you remember because you were drinking but I’m sorry. For everything. I really can’t believe you’re still friends with me. Is an apology from someone like me even worth anything? I feel like it might just be more annoying, like someone handing you their trash to throw away. You were drunk and said that it doesn’t matter what I want, because you want to be friends with me and I have to deal with it. But I can’t believe that. You’re so responsible, and amazing_

The beginning of a strikethrough through the next word as if to cross it out– but the strike curbed itself and the words were still legible.

_and there’s nobody like you. I wonder if you’re reading this thinking I tell everyone I want to sleep with that. I feel like I spent my whole life being told that I was the most important, unique, singular person in the world and I never had to do anything to earn that. I was just born. But you’re a master summoner and traveled between worlds without even flinching, and you’re still you. You still don’t know how to play the harp or talk to people when you’re really flustered. You still have a short temper but you’re really sweet, deep down, even though you’re smart enough to know better. Sometimes it’s annoying how naive and selfless you can be, because I feel like I could be minding my own business somewhere and suddenly I’m worried you’re getting conned at the market or offering yourself up to die again and this time I won’t be there to throw you through the nearest interdimensional portal. And I like your anger. I like when you’re so mad you’re terrifying. It always comes from compassion. You’re never cruel. Not even to me._

_I couldn’t stay in Meltokio. I’m traveling and I’m safe. Please don’t worry. I just need to try this thing everyone talks about called ‘thinking about my future’ and if the king finds out he’ll think I’ll decide my future is to overthrow him or something stupid. When I see you again I’ll tell you more._

_Don’t wait around for me, who knows how long it will take for me to get the hang of this. Oh and burn this damn letter. It’s too sincere and I can barely stand thinking about just you reading it. Can you imagine if someone who I DIDN’T trust completely found it?_

_Zelos_

-

He was relying maybe too much on his assumption that the monarchy didn’t take Sylvarant seriously. Would they even remember that there’s a city called Triet? A little fishing town and and a town nestled in the cliffs of a windy canyon? He imagined them seeing the fields opening up in a sudden vista beyond the dais, the way the breeze strummed the grass, and thinking even that was pathetic and provincial. A part of him still saw it that way, and the rest of him stood somberly on the edge of the monument and recognized it had a beauty that exhausted him. 

He went, subconsciously or not, to Iselia. It was where the journey had ended, the underwhelming bookend to the horror of Derris-Kharlan. 

He had no particular love for the place. He had heard about Lloyd and Genis’s exile, the way the villagers had blamed Colette, turning on Raine. The three of them were too busy with their own guilt and forgiveness to resent their home. Even Raine was soft on the village, as a teacher to many of its children. He walked through the streets cold and haughty enough that people turning to greet him turned back away. 

He shouldn’t have been surprised when he heard someone call his name, and turned around to see Colette. His face broke into a real smile.

“Well, well, well, is this town big enough for the both of us? How are you?”

She flung herself on him, beaming and warm with joy, “What are you doing here? Oh it’s wonderful to see you, Lloyd and I wanted to tell you something back in Mizuho!”

“What, you guys getting married?”

She backed away in shock, and when she lifted her hand to her face in shyness, he saw the ring.

“You’re kidding me! You really are?”

She nodded, suddenly overwhelmed. Bashful? Embarrassed that he’d guessed? But she was smiling even as she bit her lip. If anyone deserved to be overwhelmed with happiness…

“That’s the best news I could get. I’m just wandering around on a vacation. I think I’m gonna take maybe a week, two weeks, three years off. Where’s Lloyd?”

“He’s at home with da– Dirk. My grandmother and father are there, we’re having a dinner but I forgot some things at home. You should join us!”

He took a deep breath as she looked up at him with big, pleading eyes. The whole thing sounded incredibly uncomfortable. 

“Of course. Your grandmother is single, right?”

Colette, so happy and different from the martyring girl he’d met years ago, punched him in the arm.

-

The things that Colette had forgotten were several pounds of food and antique family dinnerware. 

“You were planning on carrying all of this yourself?”

She shrugged, grinning, “I guess it’s good luck that you were in town?”

They carried it in packs through the forest. There were creatures in the woods that hid from them, sensing their strength well enough to know that they weren’t worth fighting. For all his ego, Zelos forgot all the time that he was one of the few people in the world strong enough to defeat a god. It never made him feel better; instead the thought sat awkwardly under his tongue, and only dissolved once he’d forgotten again. Colette looked around at the darkening woods with a hop in her step.

“All the wildflowers should start blooming this week, I keep expecting to see them. Lloyd showed me a flower last year that only blooms at night. The best way is to follow the smell of it.”

“Is that what you’re looking for right now?”

“Huh? Oh, I guess so. I was just looking around for anything.”

They kept walking, and in a softer voice than before that perked his ears, she said, “You know that letter you sent me, saying my life is mine now?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you ever… feel strange? Still being alive?”

“I think I know what you mean. Yeah. Like, this thing I’ve been dreading my whole life is now never going to happen. So how do I live without that dread?”

“Yeah. I was so resigned that I would never… I would never get this life. I would never be this old. And I am now and I’m so happy that sometimes it’s just so much I start crying?” she laughed to herself, “That’s probably silly. Sometimes I just look at myself in the mirror, and seeing the way I look older… It’s enough to set me off. In a good way. It’s not that I’m complaining. It’s just that being alive at all makes me so happy, that everything else on top of it… It’s like I worry that I’m not thankful enough, that I’m letting everything just happen.”

“That _is_ silly. You don’t have be more thankful than you are. Hell,” he stopped in his tracks, “Colette, you deserve to be happy. Really. In a world this unfair and hard, it’s a miracle that someone as nice as you actually gets to be happy.”

She bunched her shoulders, smiling so hard so she was shy about it, “Thank you, Zelos. I wanted to tell you, because I think… You’re the only person who would understand.”

He caught up with her and nudged her shoulder with his, “Of course. What do I always say? Chosens gotta stick together.”

“What about you, though? Are you letting yourself be happy?”

The casual question floored him; she asked it sweetly but he knew it wasn’t naively done. He thought about the valley of Asgard, and the dismal way he’d felt like he wasn’t a real person yet, like he was only just starting to see dimly the way that others loved the world.

“I’m trying. I guess. I wouldn’t worry about me.”

“Of course I’m going to worry about you! You left Mizuho without saying goodbye to anyone.”

He waved his hand, “That, it was nothing. I just had a letter from the king and had to run back. Beck and call.”

“Aren’t you the one who said that we have to live our lives the way we want? For everyone before us?”

“I’m not good at stuff like that. I’ll let you take care of all the happiness stuff.”

“That’s not fair. I don’t want to be the only happy Chosen,” her hand reached for his, and squeezed strong enough that he knew she wouldn’t drop the subject, “I want us both to be happy.” 

He looked up at the darkening canopy. He steeled his chin from the sudden impulse to cry, and sighed shakily. He spoke with a see-through levity.

“Well, I guess I’ll try harder then. Just for you though, I wouldn’t give up being miserable for just anyone.”

She laughed but didn’t let go.

-

He’d managed to politely insist on staying at the village inn, despite offers to stay at Dirk’s or Phaidra’s. The dinner had been pleasant and sentimental, familial and romantic love so thick in the air over the table that it was like choking on a rich woman’s perfume. He’d watched them all in alien delight. They were nothing like his family or the aristocratic cliques he’d run with, only coming close in the moments that Colette’s family and Dirk stumbled at the differences between living in a human village and living as a dwarf in the deep woods, and then he’d turn to observe Lloyd and Colette’s complete ignorance to any missteps in the conversation; they would catch each other’s eyes across the table and and smile so much that they’d have to turn back away. The whole thing made Zelos feel insane.

Lying in bed, on top of the covers in the dark, he didn’t move but flicked his eyes to the window when he heard a noise. There was a figure opening the inn’s window, ignorant to the fact that he had enough elven blood to see them even in the pitch-black country night. He waited boredly for them to step in so that he could arrest them and send them off. He’d have to be gentle; it might be a cold-blooded thief or just an innocent teenager with clumsy aspirations of robbing the town’s wealthy guest. 

The intruder clicked the window open silently, perfectly, and stepped through the opening fluidly. They waited in the corner of the room and Zelos finally lifted his head, annoyed.

“Uh, can I help you?”

“Yeah, what the hell are you doing?”

It was Sheena. She pulled the mask over her face down and he saw her clearly now. He wanted to turn the lamp on and to leave the shadows in the room, to get up and insist she sit down and to lie still there where he was, to tell her everything and to blow her off.

“I’m sleeping?”

“You’re not though?”

He flopped his head back down on the pillow and grudged a laugh, “You’ve caught me. I’m awake. Good thing you decided to break into my room and solve this horrible crime.”

“Why did you leave Meltokio without telling anyone? And don’t act like it was nothing– I read the letter you left with Sebastian. You said you’d tell me again the next time we saw each other.”

He imagined her reading that idiotic letter and resisted putting the pillow over his face, “I didn’t think you’d hunt me down as soon as possible.”

“I’m in charge of a network of spies, you thought I couldn’t find you?”

“I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to.”

They let the answer linger. She took a half step from the corner, paused, and then came forward. He propped himself against the headboard to watch her approach. It was a small room. Provincial and pathetic. It felt like she walked a mile before she sat down on the edge of the bed, close enough that she could have brushed a strand of hair from his face.

“I know you said not to worry. But I was worried.”

“Didn’t trust me?”

“Not with yourself, no.”

He wondered if the longing on his face was obvious. Wasn’t Sheena oblivious? Maybe even the letter, which had been so sick with truth that he’d hated it, wasn’t enough. 

“Are you going to tell me why you left?”

He distracted himself by adjusting the pillow behind his back, even as he said, “They want me to marry Hilda.”

“Oh!” She blinked rapidly a few times, but otherwise there was no reaction, other than maybe a natural shyness at the idea of marriage that Sheena had always been bad at hiding.

“Yeah. So of course, I did the responsible thing and bailed as soon as possible instead of at the altar. Proud of me?”

She ignored him, still with that odd sympathetic tone she used for strangers, “Do you think Hilda will be upset?”

“Hilda? She’s probably glad I’ve disappeared. Or at least she’s not surprised.”

“So you don’t want to get married?”

“No. What? No! Sheena, do you know me at all?”

“I don’t know!” and the indignant embarrassment made her familiar again, “I thought you two were close!”

“We’re friends, I don’t want to marry her and sit in that castle until I die! I survived all my stupid mistakes and death wishes just to be miserable in that giant icebox?”

“So then what do you want?”

“I want–” he caught himself, thankfully, “I want to figure out what I want. Or if I even deserve it.”

“You said something like that in the letter too,” she leaned back more comfortably on the bed, her arm stretched over his thighs and her palm flat on the mattress, “What about wanting to move forward?"

"Forward works in a lot of different directions."

"I just thought you’d say something more specific in person. Did you get my letter?”

“No. You sent me a letter?”

“Maybe it only came after you arrived.”

“What it’d say?”

“That Lloyd and Colette are engaged.”

“I know. I just saw them today. I had dinner with both their parents. Damn, it would have actually been a huge help if you’d been there with me so you could confirm that it was the weirdest shit in the world. Do you know how unsettling it is to be surrounded by that many honest people who like each other?”

“That bad?”

“It was fine. It’s just–” he let the words rush out, “most things would be better if you were there.”

“Yeah? Because I’m not honest?”

“Because,” he hung his head and rubbed his face, “Sheena. You read the letter. Do you really not get it?”

“Get what?”

He held his hands out to her, as if the obvious truth was held right in front of her face, and then groaned and ran his hands through his hair, “Of course it’s you. Of all people, I pick you.”

Her voice was steady, searching, and knowing, “If I’m so oblivious, why don’t you just say it?”

He reached for her hand in the dark. He held it, his own hand shaking, crossing his legs so he could sit up straighter. He covered her hand with his other, enclosing it loosely, barely touching her knuckles.

“The thing I want is you. Just more of you, even if it’s just seeing each other more than we do. More letters. Whatever you want. Whatever you can spare, you think I deserve, but maybe that’s less–”

He was pushed back into the headboard as she pulled away her hand to frame his face and kiss him. He saw her face in the dark before he closed his eyes; her eyes scrunched shut and her jaw steeled. He melted under her, hands on her elbows as he slipped away from the awkward angle of the headboard so he was flat on the mattress with her above him. She pulled away. Her hair was fanning out behind her head. He was breathing hard and she was as still as an assassin sneaking in to kill him in his sleep.

“I was _talking,_ Sheena. You’re so rude.”

She didn’t laugh or smile, her eyes watching his mouth thoughtfully. She frowned as she bent down towards him again, watching his eyes, hesitating, waiting for some signal.

“Sheena, kiss me again, how desperate do I have to be–”

She leaned in, interrupting him twice. 

-

In the morning she woke up with his hair in her mouth. His arms were flung out on his side of the bed, a leg thrown over hers. There was no disentangling, no clinging limbs, but when she got up and stretched, his voice murmured behind her.

“You up?”

“I’m up.”

His eyes were still closed. She was able to look at him shamelessly. He really was beautiful, a fact she’d always avoided like a poisoned meal. Raine’s letter thudded in her chest; it hadn’t been anything like being with Orochi.

“You’re looking at me thinking how hot I am right now, aren’t you.”

He was smug, and she turned to the window, “You’re insufferable.”

“But a good lay, at least. Or at least that’s always been the feedback before.”

She folded her arms at the window, glaring for a few seconds, before returning back to the bed and sitting next to him. She resisted resting a hand on his cheek. His fingers skimmed against her knee, still with his eyes closed.

“I should see Lloyd and Colette while I’m here.”

“If you see them today they’re gonna know we slept together. Just as a warning.”

She blocked the thought out, and said without accusation, “Is this what you meant? That we should sleep together?”

His eyes opened finally, “If that’s all you want.”

“I don’t want to get married.”

He huffed a laugh and closed his eyes again, fingers now tracing back and forth comfortably over her knee, “Good. I don’t either.”

“I’m not going to leave the village.”

“No. I didn’t think you ever would.”

“And I don’t think you’d live there.”

“No. I’d drive everyone crazy and you’d end up having to banish me.”

She frowned, suddenly flooded by the fears and doubts she’d always had about him, “So…”

“I love you.”

She sat there, his hands gone still on her leg, his face set on a frown, and her fears and doubts were not any less choking. He’d said every confession and pledge before to whoever stepped into his path, why should she be any different? Maybe in the end she was just a foolish hick from the country after all. 

“Sheena, it’s okay if you don’t love me.”

“I don’t,” the sentence shocked her after she’d said it, and she held her hand to her mouth. 

He laughed and pulled his fingers away from her leg, “Ouch. Can’t say I don’t deserve that.”

“I just... I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, and you don’t trust me,” he shrugged at the ceiling, “I guess I deserve that too. But I’ve been hung up on you for awhile. Seeing you or getting a letter from you has been the happiest I’ve been in the last few months. If you want to just be friends, we’ll just be friends.”

“And you’ll marry Hilda?”

“No! I already said why I’d hate that. But–” he blinked at the ceiling, “If you’re sure there will never be anything between us, then I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get married. Move on and leave you alone. Figure out what else I want.”

“And what if someday I love you?”

He smiled at the ceiling, “If there’s a chance of that, then I’ll just wait. Still fool around. But as soon as you give the word I’d be waiting. I’d still love you. Even if there wasn’t a chance, I’ll probably always love you. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, idiot.”

“Harsh. I’m kind of being vulnerable here, Sheena, be gentle with me. Like, remember last night when you–”

“Shut up,” but she leaned over to brush the hair off his forehead.

He sighed and turned his face into it, “Oh no, are you already falling for me?”

“Maybe.”

“Be careful, I’ll start coming to Mizuho all the time. For weeks straight, until I’m so bored and you’re mad because you can’t get any work done and you send me away.”

“Oh, why, because I’m gonna be too distracted by how handsome you are?”

“No, because I’m gonna force you to actually go to bed instead of working all night. Keep up, Sheena.”

He said her name a lot. She’d never noticed before. She combed her hands over his scalp and wondered if he’d let her brush his hair. She saw suddenly, clearly, a vision of herself sitting behind him on his bed in Meltokio, struggling trying to braid his hair, and him looking in the mirror and laughing at how clumsy it was but still going outside in the upper district anyways as if it’d been done professionally. She imagined hearing the loud whispers of how bad it looked, or asking why she was with him; and he’d step closer to her so their shoulders were brushing and lean in with deliberate intimacy to whisper, “You should do my hair more often. I like the way it pisses everyone off,” and she'd laugh away her own discomfort.

“Sheena?”

“I’m just thinking. What about when I visit Meltokio?”

“You can stay with me. As long as you want.”

“And you’re sure you don’t want to be king.”

“I know what I would be like as king. I wouldn’t be good. I’d never see you, even as a friend.”

“And what if His Majesty finds out that I stole his daughter’s fiancee?”

“He’ll probably send you a gift basket. Blame me. Say I seduced you.”

“Maybe you did.”

“Oh, yeah, I seduced you by bleeding my heart out pathetically on paper and again in a hotel room. If only I’d known all these years that’s all it would take.”

She smiled wryly, “It wouldn’t have worked.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“It wouldn’t have been real. I would still be angry about when we were kids. And I’d still be angry with how you used to treat me. I wouldn't have believed your apologies.”

“Are you angry now?”

She noted the line in his brow, the giveaway sign behind his casual tone, “No. I believe you. I think I’m just relieved. If that makes sense.”

“What about disappointed? That it’s me?”

“That it’s you?”

“That you’re going to end up falling horribly in love with. I mean, I know I said all that humble stuff but come on, you’re not really gonna just try me out once and then be satisfied. You’re only human.”

“Hm, I don’t know. Last night was nice, but now that I know what it’s like with the Great Zelos, maybe I can finally move on with my life. But I’ll cherish it always.” 

“I take it back. You are cruel. Especially to me.”

She leaned down and his kissed his forehead, and heard him whine a little as he lifted against it. He sat up as she pulled away, and his eyes were suddenly so open that they struck her. He took both her hands into his. 

“You know I’m serious right?”

“I’m starting to see that.”

“You want to get breakfast?”

“Sure.”

“Colette and Lloyd–”

She kissed his cheek and got off the bed, “They’ll be able to tell. I know. I don’t think they’ll be surprised.”

He stretched in bed as she went to the small bathroom; indoor plumbing had been installed in the village a few years ago, to her great relief.

As she was stepping into the shower, she heard a knock at the door. 

“Yeah?” She expected an innuendo to join her.

“You in love with me yet?”

“Is this gonna be a thing?”

“No?”

“No, not yet.”

“Damn.”

She thought about falling asleep in the same bed as him, the focus of his look and touch on her the night before, the way his hair swung when he fought. The way she didn't know him well enough to expect either his betrayal or confession, how one had terrified her and the other made her laugh. She thought of the letter; was there anyone else like him? The betrayal had made her look back over the years and see the clues in stark clarity, the misery that lived deeper in him than she had cared to guess. The trail of hints leading to the confession were surfacing slower, more pleasantly, through a fog of memories; a moment of seriousness, a glance he'd thrown sideways towards her when she was lagging behind, a late night conversation when the rest of the camp was asleep, something stupid when she was upset that at the time had irritated her and now she saw as a distraction from her own nightmares. More recently were the signs of romance she'd overlooked, but further back in time still were the signs of care tailored to her, from someone who really knew her. Then the years apart, the sullen hurt between them disguised by insults and distance. 

Beyond that, back to the beginning. A strange boy who hadn't see her as a failure or a curse but as another child who seemed lonely. He'd made her laugh and asked her questions. They'd sit on his bed and eat chocolate. He'd taken her to the city gate once, late at night, and they'd looked at the lights and it had no longer seemed like a place she had to fear. They'd turned around and looked towards the ocean, and she'd pointed to some vague point in the darkness and said, _I live all the way over there. Someday I'll show you where so you can find me._

“But ask me in an hour.”

  
  


\---

\--

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "i refuse to situate [someone] in a position where [they] might interfere one day with my ability to repair things with you... you are the bravest person i have ever known. the truest person i have ever known. and i betrayed you and it sickens me. i am so sorry for working so hard to protect the wrong things. for failing to see there is nothing important that does not include you." -black sails
> 
> nintendo switch port prayer circle and i am not joking and i am not kidding i need a renaissance


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